Ted Montgomery writes an exclusive column for USATODAY.com 
Ted
Mouths Off  during the NHL season. During the NHL
lockout, he is writing Hockey Rewind, a biweekly review of
two NHL franchises. Montgomery is the author of four
hockey books and has been an avid hockey fan since first rooting
for the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs as a boy in suburban
Detroit. He is the media relations director at Oakland University
in Rochester, Mich.

It's interesting how similar these two teams' histories have been. Both came into the league the same year, both had their worst seasons ever in their second year of existence, both have had 15 coaches (and both have had one three-time coach and another two-timer), both had superstar players who often dominated games (Buffalo's Gilbert Perreault and Pavel Bure in Vancouver) and both teams have appeared in two Cup finals and lost each time.

So, let's rewind the tape. Welcome to the latest installment of Hockey Rewind.

BUFFALO SABRES

Franchise notes: It cost the Knox family $6 million to have Buffalo chosen as one of two new franchises in the NHL's second expansion in 1970. It's a little known fact that the Knoxes were very close to winning a franchise for Buffalo during the original expansion in 1967, but just lost out.

The name "Sabres" was chosen in a fan contest.

In 1974-75, the Sabres went to the finals after missing the playoffs the previous season, but lost to a superior Philadelphia Flyers team. When the Sabres returned to the final in 1999, they lost to the Dallas Stars on a much-disputed Brett Hull goal that is still hotly debated in bars throughout metropolitan Buffalo.

Buffalo has always been a great hockey town, and despite the notable financial travails the franchise has encountered in recent seasons, there remains a core of faithful Sabres fans.

A hard-to-find book called Thank You Sabres: Memories of the 1972-73 Season, written by Sal Maiorana, is an exhaustive account of that charmed Sabres season and paints an accurate picture of the typical diehard Sabres fan.

Inaugural season: 1970-71

Number of years in the league: 35

Number of times in the playoffs: 24

Finals appearances: Two

Stanley Cups: None

Best season: 1974-75 (49-16-15, 113 points)

Worst season: 1971-72 (16-43-19, 51 points)

Number of coaches: 15 (including Scotty Bowman three times and Floyd Smith twice)

Best coach: Lindy Ruff (1997-present), only because he got the most out of Sabres teams that weren't all that talented and took one of those teams to the Stanley Cup final.

Worst coach: Joe Crozier (1971-74)

Best captain: Danny Gare (1977-82), although Pat LaFontaine (1993-97) deserves an honorable mention. Gare is the choice because he was more of a fire-and-brimstone kind of leader.

Worst captain: Alexander Mogilny, for part of the 1993-94. Can you imagine Mogilny as your team's captain?

Best trade: On Dec. 2, 1981, the Sabres traded Danny Gare, Jim Schoenfeld and Derek Smith to Detroit for Mike Foligno, Dale McCourt and Brent Peterson. The guys the Sabres gave up were all veterans who were fading fast; Foligno spent 10 very productive years in Buffalo.

Worst trade: On Feb. 3, 1993, the Sabres traded Dave Andreychuk, Daren Puppa and a draft pick that turned out to be Kenny Jonsson to Toronto for an out of shape and totally uninterested Grant Fuhr. Andreychuk still had 10 good years in him, and Jonsson has been an excellent defenseman since the trade. Fuhr, on the other hand, plays a lot of golf.

Best first-round draft pick: Without question, it's Gilbert Perreault (1970), who spent all 17 years of his stellar career in Buffalo. He was a dominant player in the league during his era.

Worst first-round draft pick: Morris Titanic (1973), who sunk without a trace. I'm just sorry he couldn't have lasted longer in the league. It would've been fun to see him run into Bill Berg.

Vancouver sniper Pavel Bure, left, is one of the fastest skaters in league history and is still among the NHL's most exciting players when healthy.

Franchise notes: When the Canucks came into the league in 1970, they were placed in the Eastern Division, a geographical stretch of the highest order.

The Canucks missed the playoffs in six of their first eight years in the league, but by the late 1970s, they were icing a very competitive and colorful team.

Characters like Harold Snepsts, Tiger Williams and King Richard Brodeur were doing their part to draw fans and to make the team an unexpected postseason darling.

When they went to the final in 1982, they were easily dispatched by the Islanders dynasty, but they had established the franchise as a stable force in the league. Vancouver was now a hockey hotbed.

It took the team 12 more seasons to reach the final, and when they did, they were part of the best final series in the 1990s. They staged a remarkable comeback from a three-games-to-one deficit against the mighty Rangers, before finally bowing in game seven.

Since then, the team has failed to deliver on its perennial promise, and the franchise was sullied by the Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore incident. It remains to be seen whether the franchise can recover quickly from that debacle.

Inaugural season: 1970-71

Number of years in the league: 35

Number of times in the playoffs: 20

Finals appearances: Two

Stanley Cups: None

Best season: 2002-2003 (45-23-13-1, 104 points)

Worst season: 1971-72 (20-50-8, 48 points)

Number of coaches: 15 (including Harry Neale three times and Pat Quinn twice)

Best coach: Pat Quinn (1991-94, and part of 1996)

Worst coach: Orland Kurtenbach (1976-78)

Best captain: Trevor Linden (1991-97)

Worst captain: Chris Oddleifson (1976-77)

Best trade: No NHL team has an easier answer to the question "what were the franchise's best and worst trades?" The best trade the Canucks ever made was the March 20, 1996 deal that saw them ship off to Pittsburgh a fourth-line left winger named Alex Stojanov for a Swedish youngster named Markus Naslund. What were the Penguins thinking?

Worst trade: Conversely, the Canucks pulled off one of the worst deals in NHL history in 1986 when they acquired an aging Barry Pederson for young power forward Cam Neely AND a first-round pick that the Bruins turned into defenseman Glen Wesley.